Why Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters Regrets Meeting John Lennon
Many music fans — and musicians — would be thrilled to meet John Lennon. After all, he was one of the creative forces behind The Beatles’ biggest albums, records that shaped the future of pop music. Yet Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters regrets his one and only meeting with John.
The Beatles and Pink Floyd had careers that overlapped
The Beatles and Pink Floyd were active at the same time, at least for a while. John and Paul McCartney attended an early Floyd gig at a London club, writes Nicholas Schaffner in Saucerful of Secrets. The Fab Four’s late-60s period overlapped with Pink Floyd’s earliest albums.
The Beatles called it a day several years before Floyd released their seminal album The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973. Yet the bands crossed paths in the few years they overlapped.
Floyd recorded their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, next door to The Beatles as they made Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at Abbey Road Studios. That’s where Waters met John for the first and only time, an encounter the Floyd bassist regretted.
Why Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters regrets his only meeting with John Lennon: ‘He was quite snotty; so was I’
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn might be two of the best psychedelic pop albums of the 1960s. The well-established Beatles and the up-and-coming Pink Floyd recorded them in adjacent studios at Abbey Road.
Both bands remained focused on their respective projects. In the comings and goings, however, Waters and John crossed paths for the first and only time. Floyd’s bassist (and later the band’s dominant songwriter) regrets that it only happened once and that neither musician was on his best behavior (per Far Out Magazine):
“‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn,’ we were doing that in number three studio at Abbey Road, and The Beatles were doing ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ in number two … I only met John Lennon once, to my huge regret, and that was in the control room number two, and he was a bit of a — he was quite snotty; so was I.”
Roger Waters describes his meeting with John Lennon
Waters might have tagged along with a recording engineer or wandered over to studio two to see how The Beatles’ record was progressing. Either way, he met John for the first and only time, and their boorish behavior made it a regrettable moment for Pink Floyd’s bassist.
Waters later praised John in a big way
Waters’ regrettable meeting with John in 1967 was a downer in hindsight since he wasn’t on his best behavior, but it didn’t taint the Floyd leader’s opinion of The Beatles’ legend. The bassist had high praise for John years later, saying very few of the songs he wished he had written weren’t Lennon or Bob Dylan songs.
As Pink Floyd rose to prominence in the 1970s with a string of successful albums and tours, Waters had less time to hob-knob with other rock stars. That 1967 encounter with John was the only one he got. The ex-Beatle tragically died in 1980.
Roger Waters’ regrettable meeting with John Lennon serves as a life lesson — be kind to others when you can because you never know when or if you’ll see them again.
